The Final Two Time Travel Books

 

Not long after I had finished reading Kindred by Octavia Butler, I decided that I had become nearly burned out on time travel novels and I would go on to some other genre when April arrived. When I made that decision, there was still enough time left in March to read two final time travel books. The two would be All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Robert Silverberg's The Masks of Time .

Sakurazaka's book had been listed on the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. Silverberg's book was not.

I had managed to read 21 time travel books since the first of February. Many of the books chosen had come from the above linked to list. Six of the books were not on the list.

All You Need Is Kill is pretty much a standard Sci-Fi novel. Aliens invading the Earth - a united Earth fighting the aliens. The "time travel" in the book is actually a "time-loop". Does that count? Lots of killing and violence, but few surprises. I enjoyed the book, but I don't think it qualifies as one of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. The Masks of Time does, on the other hand.

I first read Silverberg's book more than 40 years ago. I can't get more specific than that. Even after all that time, I could remember more than I thought possible. The time traveler, Vornan-19 arrives in Rome, Italy on Christmas Day, 1998 to much fanfare. He soon becomes a world wide celebrity. As the world of 1998 is looking with dread upon the up coming millennium, many see the time traveler as a sign of hope.....a sign that the world continues beyond the year 2000 AD.

The book was written in 1968 - a long way from the craziness of Y2K. Of course, Silverberg did not predict the insanity of the Y2K scare, but I was reminded of that time with Silverberg's description of the apocalyptic cult of 1998.

Like many Sci-Fi writers of the mid to late 1960's, Silverberg was expecting that we'd have colonized the Moon by the end of the century. He foresaw the prevalence of computers in our time, although he expected the computers to be like the 1960 era computers - giant sized.

Unlike several of the time travel books I'd read during the past 2 months, The Masks of Time fits within the genre. Of the 21 time travel books, this one may not make the top five, but it does belong in the top ten.

Kindred

As I went deeper into my quest to read exclusively time travel novels for the next few months, I became somewhat weary of what I had gotten myself into. I've read 19 time travel novels since the first of February, and frankly not all of these have been winners. I was becoming more and more burned-out on the genre and was longing for something different.

Not at all certain that I would go into April still willing to continue the quest, I looked at the books I wanted to read before I stopped reading time travel books all together. One such novel was Octavia Butler's Kindred . I had looked into the work and was looking forward to reading this one - I've also downloaded everything written by Butler, to be read in the not too distant future.

The novel incorporates time travel and what is known as Neo-slave narratives. It is a novel that should be read - although it certainly isn't comfortable reading.

The methods writers have used to transport people through time fall into two basic categories. One method involves some sort of machine or device which transports the protagonist either forward or backward (or both) in time. Examples of this are, of course The Time Machine by H.G.Wells, it's sequel The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, and the "Oxford Time Travel series" by Connie Willis.

The second category involves "spontaneous" time travel by individuals without the use of machines. Examples of this type include Slaughterhouse-Five ,The Time Traveler's Wife and There Will Be Time . Kindred falls into this category. Like Henry DeTamble in The Time Traveler's Wife  and Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim, Kindred's Dana Franklin has no control over when she'll time travel. But resembling Jack Havig from There Will Be Time, Dana Franklin can bring objects and/or people along with her, as Franklin and her husband discover.

There are several complex themes in the Butler novel; a realistic depiction of slavery and slave communities and the "master-slave power dynamic", a critique of the official history of the United States, and the concept of "race".

As I stated earlier, Kindred is an uncomfortable read, but it deserves to be read.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Of the books listed in the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the only three books I'd read prior to coming upon the list. It's been more than 50 years since I first read the book and most of the details I remember from that early reading are probably actually memories from the 1972 film.

When I read the novel as a teenager, Vonnegut was my favorite writer - he's no longer that, but I've come upon quite a few more great writers since my teen years so that change of opinion is to be expected. Still, Slaughterhouse-Five rates very high in my view of the time travel books I've read recently.

Of the 18 time travel books I've read since the first of February, there are three which are in a very close tie for first place - To Say Nothing of The Dog ,The Time Traveler's Wife and now Slaughterhouse-Five . My only objection to Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's over-use of the phrase "So it goes" when a death is mentioned in the novel.Otherwise, it's certainly worth a read (or reread).

Tau Zero

Another Sci-Fi novel to make the list of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books is Poul Anderson's Tau Zero . Like far too many books on the list, calling Tau Zero a time travel book is to play fast and loose with the genre.

The story follows the crew of 25 men and 25 women of the starship Leonora Christine who are on their way to colonize a planet in orbit around the star Beta Virginis, in the constellation Virgo.

The starship is not capable of faster-than-light travel, but due to relativity and time dilation, the crew expects to spend 5 years on board the starship while 33 years will pass by on Earth. However, the ship passes through a small nebula which damages the "deceleration field generators". The ship cannot slow down......it actually continues to accelerate rapidly. Because of the radiation produced by the engines, the crew cannot repair the damage. The starship is unable to stop and is doomed to travel endlessly through time and space.

The speed increases to the point that billions of years pass by on Earth. So, I suppose technically we can say the crew advances to the future, although relatively little time passes for them.

Tau Zero is classified as a "hard science fiction novel" - the plot is grounded in real physics. Not exactly my favorite type of Sci-Fi. I don't mind a bit of real science, but for that I'd rather read Simon Singh or Stephen Hawking. Too much description of the hard science takes away from the story line.

The situation looks bleak throughout 95% of the story, with a happily-ever-after ending coming in the final chapter. With Sci-Fi, you can always manage a happy ending if you want one.

The Accidental Time Machine

Unlike far too many of the books found on the list of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books, Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine is actually about time travel.

The beginning of The Accidental Time Machine is pretty funny. I thought that if Haldeman could maintain the level of humor throughout the entire book, this one might be my favorite time travel book so far. Unfortunately, Haldeman pretty much abandons the humor and makes the book a "cautionary" tale. When the protagonist, Matt Fuller, arrives in AD 2252, he finds a theocracy controlled by "Jesus". I suppose quite a few Sci-Fi fans see Haldeman's having a scientist/atheist time traveler confront a Christian theocracy as an act of bravery on Haldeman's part. I, on the other hand, found that part of the novel a bit ho-hum. Maybe a little better than the traditional "time traveler meets world ruled by artificial intelligence", but Haldeman goes there later as well.

Sadly, The Accidental Time Machine starts with a bang and ends with a whimper.

The Chronoliths

According to best-sci-fi-books.com, The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson is one of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. I've just finished reading the novel, and found it very entertaining, but calling this a time travel sci fi book is a bit of a stretch. Ok, there are enormous monoliths appearing out of nowhere - as it turns out, these Chronoliths (as the monoliths come to be called) are coming from the future, but there are no humans traveling, either into the future or the past.

For this reason, I won't be labeling this under "time travel", but it does qualify to be placed in the "dystopia" category.

The book grabbed my interest right from the beginning with the protagonist being an ex patriot slacker living in Thailand. Although I've never been to Thailand, I'm familiar with that type of character here in Philippines. The first of the Chronoliths appear in Thailand, but the story doesn't remain there very long. Chronoliths are showing up all through out Asia, commemorating military victories by someone named "Kuin", twenty years in the future.

As the Chronoliths begin to show up in other areas of the world, both pro-Kuin and anti-Kuin political movements spring up across the globe - along with chaos, economic problems, apocalyptic cults, and warfare.

I enjoyed the book, but there will be no spoilers here, other than to say, "all's well that ends well".

The End of Eternity

The next work in my time travel adventures is Isaac Asimov's 1955 Sci-Fi novel, The End of Eternity . The story revolves around an organization which uses time travel for the purpose of social engineering various time periods for the betterment of humanity.

Naturally, things don't work out as planned.

I find myself judging this novel from two different criteria. First, as a Sci-Fi novel written in the 1950s, and secondly, on how well it holds up in the overall Sci-Fi world.

The book was highly acclaimed by the critics of the day. In that respect, the novel is well worth the read. It's great, by the standards of the 50s and 60s.

However, when compared to later Sci-Fi works, The End of Eternity doesn't deserve to be included in the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. Perhaps I'm being unfair.

I thought that the time frames involved within the story to be so vast as to be approaching the realm of absurdity. The speculating on the 150,000th century was enough to make my eyes roll to the back of my head.

On the plus side, the ending came as a bit of a surprise to me and it made up for some of the negatives. It may not be my favorite time travel book of all times, it still beats out  The Thief of Time or Time Enough For Love .

Three Time Travel Novels

Although I haven't written a post since my review of The Time Traveler's Wife , I am still on my quest to read only Sci-Fi novels pertaining to time travel for the next few months. Since finishing that review, I've read Tourmalin's Time Cheques by F. Anstey,The Langoliers by Stephen King and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.

As none of these three impressed me as much as The Time Traveler's Wife , I'm having a difficult time writting a separate post for each individual book. So, this post will feature all three in one.

Tourmalin's Time Cheques can only be loosely categorized as "time travel" (and not Sci-Fi at all). F. Anstey was best known for his humorous parodies in Punch magazine.Tourmalin's Time Cheques is basically a fantasy novel written in F. Anstey's typical humorous style. Written in 1891, the book appeals to those of us who can appreciate the humor of the Victorian era. Not everyone can. I found the ending a bit cheesy - one reviewer found the portions of the story trite. Heck, the book was written in 1891 and those portions may not have been looked on as trite 130 years ago. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

The Langoliers is one of four novellas contained in a collection by King entitled Four Past Midnight. Not Stephen King's best. OK, but no prize.

A good deal of Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August takes place in Russia. The story doesn't follow the pattern of a typical Russian story of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky; it's more like the stories of Yevgeny Zamyatin or Mikhail Bulgakov. I certainly don't have a problem with that, although I found the story to be a little long. It could have been resolved much earlier. Although not my favorite in the time travel genre, I liked the novel well enough to download other novels by North.

The Time Traveler's Wife

At the bottom of each post, I will post labels to direct folks to other posts that fit into a similar genre - books, and time travel are two examples. There is also a Sci-Fi label, but I'm reluctant to classify Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife as Sci-Fi. Of course, it seems only natural to put any time travel novel in the Sci-Fi category, but this wonderful book is something different.

The person who assembled the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books list describes The Time Traveler's Wife as "more love story than sci-fi". That's certainly true, but I don't believe anyone should skip this book on that account.

I absolutely loved this book; I'd even go so far as to say it's the best book I've read so far this year.

Like Jack Havig in the last time travel book I read before this one (There Will Be Time ), Henry DeTamble suffers from a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel. There are differences, of course. Jack Havig is able to travel at will, Henry DeTamble has no control over his time traveling. Jack is able to carry small items along with him - clothing, money, gold in small amounts. Henry can bring nothing - not even the clothes he's wearing. Neither time traveler can bring another person with him.

The plot summary in the wikipedia article describes the story quite well:
"Using alternating first-person perspectives, the novel tells the stories of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife, Clare Anne Abshire (born 1971), an artist who makes paper sculptures. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which later comes to be known as Chrono-Impairment. This disorder causes Henry to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991 at the beginning of the novel, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life".

As I mentioned in my review of There Will Be Time , the final 25% of that novel contains a story line which I found totally unnecessary. In the ebook edition of The Time Traveler's Wife , the first 25 pages of an upcoming sequel are included. Niffenegger estimated that the book "should be ready in 2018 or so". Unfortunately, it's 2022 and the sequel hasn't been released. I, for one, am looking forward to reading it.

The February Reading List

The reading list for February is made up of nine time travel Sci-fi novels. I had begun my list my starting with the so-called, 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. I quickly jumped off the list. Two books that made that list - Time Enough For Love and The Thief of Time should never made any "best" list.

I went thru the list and removed two. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was removed because it rightly belongs to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and should be read alongside those books.
I also culled Time and Again by Jack Finney because it's an illustrated novel and doesn't hold up well on my Kindle.

So, here are the "time travel" books I read in February.

The Anubis Gates                  Tim Powers
To Say Nothing of the Dog    Connie Willis
The Doomsday Book             Connie Willis
Blackout                                Connie Willis
All Clear                                Connie Willis
Time Enough For Love             Robert Heinlein
The Time Machine                    H.G.Wells
The Time Ships                         Stephen Baxter
There Will Be Time                   Poul Anderson